1974

Saanen 1974, unedited versions

Saanen 1st Public Talk 14th July 1974

I am so sorry it is raining. We have had beautiful weather before we began here and I hope we will have nice weather again.

I think it is rather important to realize that we are talking about serious things and to understand them we must be quite serious. This is not an entertainment, something you attend one day and then forget the rest of the time. I mean by serious, to be concerned and to be committed totally to the understanding of what is happening around us, and to try to find, if we can, indeed we should as it is our responsibility, an answer to these many many challenges that are offered to us. I mean in that sense to be serious, to be concerned and committed. And committed means action, not just theoretical acceptance of any particular system but to be committed and totally concerned to the solution, and therefore the action, of the problems that face us - politically, economically, socially, morally and religiously. To be committed to these things. Because as we observe, the world is in a dreadful state: there is so much confusion - politically, in the field of education - they are educating people for what? Where is it all going educationally? And religiously, which should be the most important issue in life, there is also the denial of creed, the denial of all the assumed authority of the priest, the doctrines, the beliefs, everything is going to pieces around us. I am sure you must be aware of all this.

You go to India, an ancient country, with ancient culture, tradition and there they are destroying themselves inwardly. And the ultimate destruction inwardly is the nuclear bomb there - I hope you realize all this. And you turn to the west and it is the same problem, poverty, not so much as in the east, decline of social morality and they are now looking for new leaders, politically they want leaders. A leader is a dangerous person in whom the whole society is involved in that one person. And society is so complex. And when we follow a leader, either you know where he is leading to, which he generally doesn't, or you must give your mind to the investigation of his theories, of his propositions and so on. That is you must also be capable as citizens to follow what he is saying. All that is involved in political leadership. And unfortunately the politicians right throughout the world are not concerned with human beings, with the unity of man, with their total welfare, but only are concerned with their particular party, with their particular system, and as all governments are more or less corrupt, some more, some less, the politicians cannot see very far, they can only operate within a very small field, segregated apart, not concerned with the total understanding of man. That was rather a mouthful, wasn't it!

And so we are faced with this. We accept slogans, cliches, worn out theories, or invent new theories, new systems, but always it is within the field of consciousness which man has carried throughout the centuries. Consciousness is its content, without its content there is no consciousness as we know it. Please, as we said, we are investigating together these problems. Therefore you must partake in it, you must share in it, you must be involved in it, not merely listen to the speaker, accepting or rejecting what he says, but together in fellowship, in co-operation, together investigate, try to find out what the world is like around us, and what is the world inside of us: whether there is a relationship between the inner and the outer; or are they one, indivisible? And that is our concern. We must be committed to the understanding of this. And that is why you must share in it, we must journey together, not be lead, together and therefore there is no authority, there is no leader in investigating. And to investigate you must be totally concerned, not one day be concerned and the rest of the time forget it. You must be concerned day after day, month after month, year after year, all your life because this is your life.

So where do we find the answer, a logical, sane, healthy answer to all these problems? Not only the problems that lie outside of us, the wars, the violence, the cunning politicians, the preparation for war and talking about peace - you know what is happening around us: it is wicked, diabolical, appalling - and also we have to find out our relationship to that, what is our place in all this. What is our responsibility - to be responsible means to respond adequately or totally to what is happening. And to respond to it one must be deadly serious, right through our life. That is why, if you are going to be here for the next three weeks or four weeks, you are going to share with what the speaker is saying. You have to listen to find out, and to find out, not what the speaker is saying only, but to find out for yourselves, the right answer, one must put aside your prejudices, your nationalities, your beliefs, your experiences, your knowledge, your hopes, everything to find out. And that demands tremendous seriousness.

I don't think most of us realize what is actually going on in the world. We read newspapers - I personally don't read newspapers - but those of you who read them, those of you who watch the television, go to lectures, political, religious and all the rest of it, they are all the superficial explanations, superficial demonstrations, but if one can go beyond all that, putting all that aside, one can see, if one has observed rather closely, how man is deteriorating, degenerating, and this degeneration takes place when you depend totally on the outer. That is, when matter, material becomes all important. Are we going together? Please do listen to all this, give your heart and your ears to this. Not that the speaker wants to convince you, or do propaganda, that is terrible. When you look at all this, the divergence of opinions, ideologies, the political systems, right, left or centre, everybody is talking, or arranging, or trying to reform the institutions, the governments, they are still working in the field of time, thought and matter.

Please, I may use words which are very simple, not any particular jargon, not any particular words that have a subtle or hidden meaning, but the words which exist in the dictionary. So to communicate we must use simple, clear words. And in communication, which is to think together, to understand the words together, to listen to find out not only the meaning of the words but also the meaning that lies behind the words. Only then there is communication between the speaker and you. But if you are merely caught in words and the explanation of words, the semantic meaning of words, then we shall miss what lies behind the word. So to communicate requires a great deal of concern on both sides, a great deal of serious attention.

And when one sees what is happening, when one observes, all politicians, the religious people, the various sects and denominations and so on are merely concerned with the operation of thought, because thought has created this world - the world of politics, the world of economics, the world of business, social morality and the whole religious structure, whether it is in India, here or anywhere, is based on thought, whether it is the Jewish thought, or the Arabic thought, or the Christian thought, or the Hindu thought, it is essentially the operation of thought as matter - right?

Are we meeting each other? And we are trying to solve all our problems within that field. When you meditate you are still caught in the pattern of that thought, still within that area of consciousness which is put together by thought. When you try to find political answers, it is still within that area - you understand? All our problems, all our desires to find answers to those problems, are within that consciousness - right? I do not know if you have talked to any serious politicians, perhaps? The speaker has in India, in America, here and elsewhere, they are all trying to find an answer, to find a political philosophy, a reformation of institutions within that field which thought has created. And so thought is trying to find an answer to that which it has created. The mess it has made in our personal relationships, in our relationship with the community, in our relationship with the government and so on and so on, it is all within that field. And as politics unfortunately play such an important part in our social, moral environmental conditioning, the politician, the so-called 'right on top of the ladder', they want to find an answer, if they are at all slightly serious, which I doubt, they are trying to find an answer to all the problems in the field, or in the function of thought - right? That is so. It is not my invention, it is not what I think, this is a fact. Thought, which has divided the world into the Americans, the Communists, the Socialists, the Germans, the Swiss, the Hindu, the Buddhist, the divisions, economic, national, religious divisions, which thought has created.

So is there an answer to all these problems through the operation of thought? Even your meditations, even your gods, your Christs and your Buddhas and all the rest of it, they are the creation of thought and thought is matter. And thought can only operate within the field of time. I think this is very clear, if you have at all thought or given your heart to this. And is there an answer to all these problems through thought? Then if thought cannot answer it what will? You are following all this? So that is what we are going to investigate, not only this morning but right through all these seven or fourteen discussions and talks. Because we think through thought, through will, through ambition, through drive and aggression, we can solve all these problems - problems of personal relationship between you and another, the substitutions of new religions instead of the old, the traditions that are brought over, which are dead already anyhow in India, are brought over here or America or Europe by gurus, who are soaked in tradition. Do you understand all this? If you saw any of the television and all that you would have seen the absurdities that are going on.

So first we must investigate what is consciousness. What is the operation of thought? Because thought has created everything around us, the whole technological field with all the scientific knowledge, the culture in which we live, the Christian culture, the western culture or the eastern culture is put together by thought. The gods, the saviours - we have created them. God has not created us in his image, we have created god in our image. And we pursue that image, which thought has created, and we call that religious activity. And to understand what is consciousness, because that is what we have, when we say, "I am conscious", it means I am conscious of everything happening around me as much as possible. To be aware of what is happening within that consciousness, to be attentive implies not only to the investigation of the content of consciousness but also what lies beyond, if there is something beyond the so-called consciousness. All that is involved. All right, we are understanding each other? Please at the end of this talk we will ask some questions but please this is the content, the essence of what we are talking about.

And in that area all your meditations are, all your pursuits of pleasure, fear, greed, envy, brutality, violence are within that field. And thought is always endeavouring to go beyond it, asserting the ineffable, the unnameable, unknowable and so on - right?

So the content of consciousness is consciousness - right? May we go on from there? Your consciousness, or another's consciousness if it is born in India, is its content. If it is born in that country with all the traditions, superstitions, hopes, fears, sorrows, anxieties, violence, sexual demands, aggression, his beliefs, his dogmas, his creeds, are the content of your consciousness. Right? Are you following this? When you examine the content of consciousness, the content is extraordinarily similar, whether in the east or in the west. Please consider your own consciousness, look at your consciousness, if you can. You are brought up in a culture, a religious culture as a Christian, believing in - and all the rest of it, you know what you believe - saviours, rituals, creeds, dogmas on one side, social immorality, accepting wars, accepting your nationalities and its divisions, and therefore restricting economic expansion, consideration of others and so on and so on. Your personal unhappiness, your ambitions, your fears, your greeds, your aggressiveness, your demands, your loneliness, your sorrow, your lack of relationship with another, isolation, frustration, confusion, misery, all that is your consciousness. No? With variations, with joys, with more knowledge or less knowledge, all that is the content of your consciousness. And without the content there is no consciousness as we know it. And all our education, the schools, the colleges, the universities are based on the acquiring of more knowledge, more information, but functioning always within that area.

If you observe yourself and any reformation, politically, in a new political philosophy, instead of Communist philosophy, Marxian philosophy or other philosophy, to invent another philosophy is still within that area - right? Do please see this. And so man goes on suffering, unhappy, lonely, fearful of death and living, hoping for some great leader to come and take him out of his misery - a new saviour, a new politician, a new Hitler, a new Wilson and God knows what else. And because we are so irresponsible in this confusion we are, out of our own disorder, going to create tyrants, hoping they will create order within this area. Are you following all this? This is what is happening outside of us and inside.

So what shall be done? What shall we do? Not what the politicians will do, because they are like us, confused, unhappy, ambitious, envious, you know, like us. And any leader we choose will be like us, we will not choose a leader who is totally different from us. So that is the actual picture of our life - conflict, inside and outside, struggle, fight, wrangle, one opposed to the other, appalling selfishness - you know the whole picture - right?

Now our problem is, if you are at all serious and one must be serious when there is so much sorrow in the world, so much confusion, so much hate and antagonism, where there is not a spark of love - love is not pleasure, love is not desire. So the first thing that behoves us, if we are at all serious, is to find out for ourselves through careful investigation, slow, patient, hesitating investigation, to see if there is any other way of solving all these problems. Not through the operation of thought, but is there an action which is not based on thought? Is there an intelligence which is not cunning, which is not the function or the result of thought, which is not put together by thought, which doesn't come about through friction, struggle, but something entirely different? That is what I want to communicate. And therefore one has to listen: listen not to the speaker, but the action of listening. That is, how do you listen? Do you ever listen at all? Or do you always listen with interpretation, with prejudices, with cunning operations of thought? Or are you free to listen? So you have to listen, if you are free, to listen to the content of your consciousness, listen to, not only what is observable, which is fairly simple, but the layers of it. That means the conscious as well as the deeper, which is the totality of consciousness. Are we communicating with each other?

So from that arises the question: how to look; how to listen and how to look? All right. This person, the speaker, was born in a certain country with all the prejudices, irrationalities, with the superstitions, with the beliefs, with the class differences, as a Brahmin and all the rest of it; there the mind, the young mind absorbed all this - the tradition, the rituals, the extraordinary orthodoxy of that particular group, the tremendous discipline imposed by that group upon itself. And he moves to the west, there again he absorbs all that. And the content of his consciousness is what he has learnt, what has been put into it, what are his thoughts and the thought which recognizes its own emotions and so on. That is the content of this person. And within that area he has got all the problems - political, religious, personal, communal, you follow? All the problems are there. And not being able to solve them he looks to others, to books, to various forms of asking "Please tell me what to do, how to meditate; what shall I do about my personal relationship with my wife, or my girl or whatever it is, between myself and my parents; should I believe in Jesus or in Buddha, or the new guru who comes along with a lot of nonsense?" You follow? Searching for a new philosophy of life, new philosophy of politics and so on and so on, all within that area. And man has done this from time immemorial. And there is no answer within that area. You may meditate for hours, sitting in a certain posture, breathing, but it is still within that area because you want something out of meditation. I don't know if you see all this?

So there is this content - heavy, dull, stupid, traditional, thought recognizing all its emotions - otherwise they are not emotions - and always thought, which is the response of memory, knowledge and experience, operating. Now can the mind look at it? Can you look at it? You understand? We said to listen to it, to hear what it says. Now we are talking about looking. Now when you look, who is the looker, who is the observer? You understand? Come on sirs, you understand? Is the observer, who is looking at the content, different from the content? This is really a very important question to ask and find an answer. Is the observer different from the content and therefore he can then change, alter and go beyond the content? Or is the observer the same as the content? First look: if the observer, the 'I' that looks, the 'me' that looks, if the observer is different from the observed then there is a division between the observer and the observed and conflict. Right? "I must not do this, I should do that. I must get rid of my particular prejudice and adopt a new prejudice. Get rid of my old gods and take on new gods". So when there is a division between the observer and the observed there must be conflict. That is a principle, that is a law. When there is a German and a Russian and an Englishman, and a Frenchman there must be division and therefore there is everlasting conflict between them, economically and all the rest of it - right? This is a principle, this is a law, inevitable. So do I observe the content of my consciousness as an outsider looking in and therefore altering the pieces and moving the pieces to different places? Or is the observer, the thinker, the experiencer, the looker, is he different from that? Or both are the same? You understand? Don't be so puzzled please! It is very simple.

Look sir: am I different from you? Physically, yes. But the content of my mind, if I have not gone beyond it, is like yours - the worries, the pain, the suffering, the anxieties, the brutalities, the sexual demands, you know human beings are the same right through the world - they may be brown, black, purple, yellow or pink and all the rest of it. Now how do I look at you? How do you look at me? Because the 'how you look' matters tremendously, whether it is a mountain, or a goat, or a politician, or your wife, or your girl or yourself, how you look matters tremendously. Because if you look at another man from India or Asia, look, not merely say, "Yes, he is like me", but actually look - if you look with eyes that are always divided then there is conflict between you and him - right? Naturally. And if I look at the content of my consciousness as an outsider observing, then there must be conflict between what is observed and the observer. That is so, isn't it? So what happens when I hear this statement - please listen to this - when I hear this statement that when there is a division between the observer and the observed, there is conflict? Like an Arab and the Jew there must be conflict. So in that division and conflict we have lived, 'me' and the 'not me', we and they. I observe the observer is different from anger, therefore he tries to control it, suppress it, dominate it, overcome it and all the rest of it - right? Are you following all this? So is the observer different at all? Or is he essentially the same as the observed? If it is the same there is no conflict, is there? You understand? The understanding of that is intelligence. Then intelligence operates and not conflict - you understand what I am talking about?

Are you giving as much blood as the speaker is giving in understanding? Or are you just listening, you know, playing with words? And it would be a thousand pities if you don't understand this simple thing because man has lived in conflict, and he wants peace through conflict. And there can never be peace through conflict, however many armaments and all that you may have, against another armament equally strong, and then fight, there will never be peace. Only when intelligence operates will there be peace. Intelligence which comes when one understands that there is no division between the observer and the observed, and therefore that very insight, that very fact, that very truth brings this intelligence. Have you got it? Sirs this is a very serious thing. Then you will see that you have no nationality, you may have a passport but you have no nationality, you have no gods, there is no outside authority, nor inward authority. The only authority then is intelligence, not the cunning intelligence of thought, which is mere knowledge operating within a certain area - that is not intelligence.

So this is the first thing to understand, that when you look at your consciousness - we will go into how to look - when you look into this consciousness this division between the thinker and the thought, between the observer and the observed, the experiencer and the experienced, are one, there is no thinker if you don't think. Thought has put the thinker, thought has created the thinker. The thinker is the observer with his past knowledge, with his traditions, with his experiences, with his accumulated knowledge; and not being able to solve these problems we say, "Let's go back to the past, let's accept tradition". You know that word 'tradition' means not only to hand over, to give over, but also it has got another meaning, it has the meaning of 'betray'. You look in a good dictionary and you will find it is so. Tradition not only means what is generally accepted but also it means to betray. And that is what they are doing when they bring their old traditions from India to this country or to America, they are betraying; betraying the awakening of intelligence. So that is the first thing to understand, to have an insight, to have the truth of it, the fact of it as palpable as you are sitting there, so that there is no conflict between the observer and the observed.

So: what is the content? Can you look at it? The content of your consciousness, the hidden as well as the open, can you look at it? Don't make an effort! For the love of god! This you can only find out not here, sitting, find out in your relationships. You understand? Because that is the mirror in which you will see, not by closing your eyes and going off into the woods and thinking up some dreams, but in actual fact of relationship, man, woman, your neighbour, your politician, your gods, your gurus, all the rest of the business. Because there you observe your reactions, your attitudes, your prejudices, your images, your constant groping and all the rest of it is in that. Right? Surely/ Are you following all this? Look: what we are doing now is merely ploughing, and we can go on ploughing, ploughing and never sowing. You can only sow when you observe your relationships and see what actually is taking place.

So you see, from hearing you move to looking, from listening you are looking. And you can look as much as you like and begin to distinguish various qualities and tendencies and all the rest of it, but when you look as an observer different from the observed then you are bound to create conflict, and therefore it creates further suffering. But when you have the insight, the truth of it that the observer is the observed then conflict ceases altogether. Then a totally different kind of energy comes into operation. I wonder if you can go on with this? Do you understand all this? Sir, there are different kinds of energy - physical energy, good food and all the rest of it, there may be energy created by emotionalism, sentimentality, then there is energy created by thought through various conflicts and tensions, and within that area we have lived. I am only putting it differently. And we are still trying to find greater energy within that field, to solve our problems which need tremendous energy. Now there is a different kind of energy, or the continuation of this energy in a totally different form, when the mind is completely operating, not in the field of thought, but intelligently. We will go into that during all these talks.

So can the mind observe its content without any choice of the content? Right? Not choosing any part of the content, any part of the piece but observe totally? Right? Now how is it possible to observe totally? You understand? When I look at a map of France, I come from England, cross the Channel and I look at the map, and I see the road leading to Gstaad. That is very simple. I know the mileage, I can see the direction and that is very simple because it is marked there and I follow it. And in doing that I don't look at any other part of the map because I know - please listen to this - I know the direction I want to go in, so the direction excludes all the other. Therefore a mind that is seeking a direction cannot see the whole. You understand this? If I want to find something, something which I think is real, then the direction is set, and I follow the direction and therefore my mind is incapable of seeing the totality. Now when I look at the content of my consciousness, which is yours, when I look at it I have a set direction to go beyond it. I have a set direction, a movement in a particular direction, pleasurable, not wanting to do this or that, it is always a movement in a certain direction, and therefore it is incapable of seeing the whole. If I am a scientist I only see in a certain direction. If I am an artist, there again, if I have a certain talent or gift, again the same direction. You are following all this? So the mind is incapable of seeing the totality and the immensity of that totality if there is a movement in a particular direction. Movement means time because times implies from here to there.

So can the mind have no direction at all? Please this is a difficult question. Please listen to it. Of course it has direction when it goes from here to the house, when I have to operate in a certain direction, when I have to drive a car, when I have to do some technical function, those are all directions. But I am talking of a mind that understands the nature of direction and therefore capable of seeing the whole. When you see the whole it can then operate in direction. I wonder if you get this? If I have the whole picture in mind then I can take the details. But if my mind only operates in details I cannot take the whole. If I am concerned with my opinions, with my anxieties, with what I want to do, with what I must do, I cannot see the whole, obviously. If I come from India with my blasted prejudices and superstitions and traditions I cannot see the whole.

So my question is: can the mind be free of direction? It doesn't mean it is without direction. When it operates from the whole the direction becomes very clear, very strong and effective. You understand? But when the mind only operates in direction according to the pattern it has set for itself then it cannot see the whole. Are we communicating with each other? We will go into it day after day in different ways. So there is the content of my consciousness. The content makes my consciousness. Now can I look at it as a whole - without any direction, without any judgement, without any choice, just to look? And as I said, as the speaker said, to look implies no observer at all, for the observer is the past. To observe with that intelligence which is not put together by thought, which is the past. Do do it. And this requires tremendous discipline, not the discipline of suppression, control, imitation, conformity and all that rubbish, but it is a discipline, it is an act in which the truth is seen. And the truth operates, and therefore the operation of truth creates its own action, which is discipline.

So can your mind look at your content? And you can only look at it when you talk to another, in your gestures, in the way you walk, in the way you sit and eat, in the way you behave. Because behaviour indicates the content of your consciousness - right? Whether you are behaving according to pleasure, reward and pain, which is part of your consciousness. The psychologists are saying that so far man has been educated on the principle of punishment - heaven and hell, you know, all that business. Now he must be educated on reward - do you understand? On the principle of reward, don't punish him but reward him, which is the same thing, you understand? You go from one thing to another and you think you are solving everything. Now to see the absurdity of punishment and reward is to see the whole. And when you see the whole there is the operation of intelligence which functions when you behave. Right? You are getting it? You are not then behaving according to reward or punishment. I wonder if you are getting all this? Because behaviour exposes the content of your consciousness. You may hide yourself behind a polished behaviour, a mechanical behaviour, a behaviour that is very carefully drilled, but such behaviour is merely mechanical.

And so from that arises another tremendously important problem: is the mind mechanical? Or is there any portion where the brain is not mechanical at all? We can't go into that now because it requires a great deal of investigation and enquiry. So we will stop this morning. That is I will go over it so that you will see what I mean.

Outside of us, the political world, the economic world, the religious world, the social world, the new political philosophies, and so on, man is searching, searching, searching within that - new gods, new gurus, new leaders. And when you observe all this, you see very clearly that they are all functioning within the field of thought. Thought essentially is never free, thought is always old, because thought is the response of memory as knowledge and experience, which is matter. That is the material world. And thought is trying to escape from that material world into a non material world. And to escape into the non material world by thought is still material. And we have all these problems, personal, collective, moral, social, problems of the individuals and the collective - the individual is essentially, intrinsically part of the collective, you are no different from the collective, you may have a little different tendencies, different occupations, different moods and so on, but you are intrinsically part of your culture, which is society and so on.

Now those are facts that are going on about us. The facts inside are also similar, very much alike. And we are trying to find an answer for the major problems of our human life through the operation of thought - thought which the Greeks have imposed upon the west, with their political philosophy, with their mathematics and you know all the rest of it, which is still thought. And thought has not found an answer, and it never will.

So we must go then into the whole structure of thought and the content which thought has created as consciousness; and then observe it in relationship, in your daily life. And that observation implies looking, having an insight into the fact of whether the observer is different from the observed, if there is a division between the observer and the observed there must inevitably be conflict, as between two ideologies. Two ideologies are the inventions of thought, conditioned by the culture it has lived in and so on and so on. Now can you, in your daily life, observe this? And in the observation of this you will find out what your behaviour is, whether it is based on the principle of reward and punishment. And most of our behaviour is, however much polished, refined and all the rest.

So from that observation one begins to learn what real intelligence is, not the intelligence which is bought out of a book, out of experience, that is not intelligence at all. Intelligence has nothing whatsoever to do with thought. Intelligence operates when the mind sees the whole, the endless whole - not my country, my problems, my little gods, my meditations, is this right, is this wrong, but to see the whole implication of living. And when you observe, out of that comes this quality of intelligence which has got its own tremendous energy.

Now perhaps some of you, if you care to, and if you are not too tired, might ask some questions - questions that are relevant to what we have been talking about. You know it is fairly easy to ask questions, very easy. And when you have asked questions who is going to answer your question? You understand? Who is going to answer it? The speaker?

Q. I am.

K. One moment sir. Let me finish. Who is going to answer the question? And then if you are going to answer it yourself then why ask the question? You ask the questions either to trip the speaker, to catch him out - and the speaker is quite willing to be caught out - or you are asking a question and in the very asking you are sharing that question with others, so the others have to listen to that question, not be caught in their own questions. You understand what I am saying? If I am asking a question I am asking it aloud so that you and I share that question, because my question is your question. So you must be willing to listen to that question and not just be involved in your own particular little question. So in the sharing of that question we are both together investigating the implications of that question, therefore it is my question as well as yours, and therefore we are sharing it, and therefore the answer is yours and mine - do you understand all this? That is involved in asking a question. Now, you wanted to ask a question sir?

Q. (Inaudible)

K. Sir, look sir. Thought has created these wars - right? Right? And the instruments of war. Thought has created the division between the countries, as German, Russian, American, Hindu and all the rest, the Jew and the Arab, it is the division by thought that has created wars, and we go on operating in that field, keeping the divisions and trying to talk about peace, meeting at different summit levels or whatever the beastly things are called, and is that intelligence? Or is intelligence seeing the inwardness of this, the truth of this and letting that intelligence operate, which means no division, which means all the politicians, get together - you follow? - and say, "Look, let's forget our systems, policies, what is the right thing to do for the world". Do you think any politician will ever do that? No. Therefore you have to change, not the politician. And the transformation lies not in the reformation of institutions, or new philosophies but the transformation in your consciousness.